Fledgling Data Alliances Poised to Grow in Germany

With GDPR coming into effect at the end of May, global players such as Google, Amazon, Facebook and Apple (Gafa) will have yet another competitive advantage based on their users’ consent to employ personal data for a variety of purposes.

In order to address this imbalance at scale, alliances across different industries are being developed with special emphasis. In Germany, two big co-operations are at the centre of attention: Verimi and European Net-ID Foundation.

Verimi is a broad cross-industry alliance founded by Allianz, Axel Springer, Deutsche Telekom, Lufthansa, Daimler as well as security specialist Giesecke + Devrient. On the other hand, European Net –ID Foundation has recently been created by publishing groups ProSiebenSat.1, RTL and United Internet.

These new data alliances offer a solution for individuals to manage their digital identity and data with companies and government entities on a transparent and secure basis. One of the purposes clearly is to foster digital self-determination. At the same time, these alliances are set to create reach and significant knowledge about customer groups, all usable for marketing.

Although this is an approach to counterbalance the prowess of GAFA, it may further highlight the disadvantage of smaller businesses without access to large data pools and analytical tools. These businesses continue to face the challenges of meeting technical requirements and legal compliance. In our view, these businesses will either have to form alliances of their own or accept their dependency on large networks.